


Bad at Communication

by Lovely_Dovely



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: ADHD Character, ADHD Leo, Anxiety, Autistic Character, Autistic Donnie, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24400984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lovely_Dovely/pseuds/Lovely_Dovely
Summary: Donnie's not the greatest at comforting his brothers, but he tries his best when he has to.
Relationships: Donatello & Leonardo (TMNT)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 297





	Bad at Communication

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a crazy couple of days, so I wrote this to make myself feel better. Also while I very much leaned into my ND headcanons for these boys, it's not super important to the story, so you can read it how you want.
> 
> tcesters don't touch.

It's easy for Donnie to lose track of time. Late at night, when the rest of his family is all asleep, presents the best time for him to get work done with little to no distractions. He'll sit at his desk for hours welding or coding or drawing up blueprints, and he won't even realize how long he's been working until someone comes looking for him for breakfast. It's not something he ever really means to do. He just forgets to look at the clock until his work is complete.

It's three in the morning, now that Donnie remembers to check. He'd just hit a bug in his code for a new project, and he can't seem to find where the problem is and it's really starting to get on his nerves. Maybe it would be a good idea to take a break and sleep on it.

He leans back in his chair and stretches his arms over his head, getting rid of the stiffness in his spine. With a yawn, he finally places his feet back on the floor from their crossed position and stands from his desk, heading out of the lab towards his room. He pulls off his mask and places it down on his bedside table, then unhooks his battle shell from his back and places it down at the foot of his bed.

As he starts pulling on his pajamas, he realizes he's actually feeling a little hungry. A snack before bed wouldn't hurt, so he pulls back the curtain in front of his door and starts heading to the kitchen. He thinks he remembers there were leftovers from the dinner Mikey made earlier.

Donnie tries to remain quiet as he moves through the lair, not wanting to wake his brothers and get an earful about his unhealthy sleeping habits again. But he stops as he passes by the tv room, surprised to see someone sitting in one of the beanbag chairs.

It's not unusual for Leo to be up this late. They're all aware to some extent that Leo has trouble getting to sleep sometimes, though perhaps Donnie most of all, since he's usually the only one else awake to see it. But normally when Donnie finds him, he's drinking tea, or scrolling through his phone, or watching tv. Right now he's just doing nothing, sitting in the dark by himself. He's got a tense, faraway look on his face. His knees are bent up to his chest, with one elbow propped up to rest his fist against his forehead, and his other hand is curled over his chest, fingers tapping against his plastron.

They've all had issues with anxiety or getting overwhelmed before. It's not like this is something Donnie’s never seen before. It's just that usually when it happens to Leo, he tries to hide it from the rest of them.

Raph and Mikey have both always been open about their feelings, unafraid to reach out for help, or ask to be left alone. But Leo was always quick to start cracking jokes, or overdramatize when he didn't know how to deal with things. Donnie knew it was a cover; Leo himself admitted it was a coping mechanism. But something about catching his brother like this, with all his walls down, feels wrong. In the back of his mind, it never seemed all that bad before. Leo clearly didn't want to talk about it, so he just never brought it up.

But is it okay to just ignore now, after seeing his brother so distressed? He clearly wasn't _supposed_ to see, so he could just pretend he didn't and keep walking to the kitchen like nothing's wrong. But is that something Leo would actually want? To be left alone like this?

Either way, Raph or Mikey probably wouldn’t ignore it. After a moment of contemplation, Donnie folds his hands over his chest and steps into the room.

"Hey," he speaks to get his attention, and Leo flinches at the sudden realization that he's not alone anymore. He seems to relax a little from the initial fear when he sees it's only his brother, though his expression turns into a grimace as he averts his eyes.

"Hey, I… didn't know you're awake," he says, curling his hand into a fist to stop his own finger tapping.

"Yeah, I've been working on something in the lab," Donnie starts, "You know it's like, 3am?"

Leo's eyes flick up to the digital clock sitting by the projector, and he hums in acknowledgement. Donnie shifts his weight from one foot to the other and crosses his arms.

"Are you, uh… feeling okay?"

There's a long pause between them after the question. Donnie wonders if Leo's having the same _talk it out or ignore it_ debate in his own head.

"Just having a rough night," he finally replies. His expression softens a bit, though he still avoids looking at his brother.

"Did you… want to talk about it, or something?"

"No. Not really," Leo's voice gets quieter, as he starts focusing his attention on pulling a loose thread on his pajama pants.

Donnie stands there for a moment, waiting to see if Leo wants to say anything else. Eventually though, the uncomfortable tension in the air gets to be too much for him, and he turns around to go back to his earlier mission.

Mikey is so much better at handling these situations, Donnie thinks to himself as he enters the kitchen. He needed his little brother's help to talk to his own robot, so there's really no way he could be any help to Leo right now anyway, right? Donnie needs straightforward, to-the-point bluntness, and Leo is anything _but_ that when it comes to his own emotions. He’d probably just make it worse by trying to help.

So Donnie pulls out the leftovers, grabs a fork, and leans against the counter to take a few bites. Normally he'd heat some up in the microwave instead of eating it cold, but he doesn't plan on staying in here long enough to bother. He's just gonna go straight to bed in a minute. Maybe he'll talk to Mikey about Leo in the morning.

After eating enough to feel satisfied, he puts the rest of the food back in the fridge and sits his fork in the sink, pouring some water into a glass before heading back up to his room. He can't help glancing at Leo again as he passes. He seems a bit more relaxed now, and he's pulled out his phone, so that makes Donnie feel a little better. But he's still got that stressed out look on his face; like he's trying really hard to distract himself, but it's not working.

When Donnie gets back into his room, he stands in the doorway for a moment tapping his finger against the glass. Even if he can’t talk things out, it doesn’t feel right to just leave Leo down there by himself. Even if he can’t always read a room, or pick up on subtle body language very easily, he’d like to think he knows his own brother enough to know he wouldn’t want to be alone right now.

He quickly gulps down the rest of his water and then puts the glass down on his table. He then pulls the blankets off of his bed and wraps them around his shoulders to take them with him, and grabs his switch out of the dock before heading back out to the tv room.

Leo looks confused as Donnie rounds the corner with a mountain of blankets trailing behind him.

"Hey, you know that game April's been telling us about, Hollow Knight?" Donnie says before he can ask, holding up the switch in his hands. "I downloaded it last night, but I haven't had the chance to try it out yet. Do you wanna watch?"

"... Yeah. Sure," Leo responds after a beat. He sinks himself further down into the beanbag and puts his phone in his lap as Donnie drops all the blankets on the floor in front of him, and starts kicking the nearest bean bag closer to his.

As soon as he sits down, he starts pulling all the blankets over himself and Leo, letting his brother take the heaviest one. Once he feels sufficiently comfy he pulls the switch back out from under the blankets and positions it in between the two of them, turning it on.

Leo practically wraps himself into a cocoon before he curls up into a ball, leaning over to get a good look at the screen. Donnie wonders again if he should say anything, as they both sit in silence waiting for the game to boot up, going through all the stuff "Dr. Feelings" talked to him about, before. When the title screen pops up, he hesitates.

"Hey… I know neither of us are great at talking about this kind of stuff. But I'm… here for you, if you need me, y'know?"

Leo doesn't say anything. After a few seconds Donnie starts to worry he shouldn't have brought it up. But then Leo shifts to lean into Donnie's side, and rests his head against his shoulder.

Donnie smiles softly, taking that as a good enough answer, and with that he presses play. The two remain quiet for the most part, except for when Leo starts backseat gaming and Donnie has to tell him to knock it off. Their usual bickering seems to be making Leo feel better though, even getting a couple laughs out of him, so Donnie tries not to get too annoyed with him for now.

Eventually, after a long stretch of silence, Donnie looks over and sees Leo fell asleep. Knowing from past experience that he might be a little disappointed to find out he missed something later, Donnie saves the game where he is and shuts it down, resting the switch in his lap as he snuggles himself into his chair more comfortably and pulls the blankets up to his chin. He falls asleep not long after.


End file.
